Charm Bracelet
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: Piper reflects on special gifts.


Title: Charm Bracelet  
  
Author: Cassandra Mulder  
  
E-mail/feedback: Loved, adored, and replied to at dana_mulder32@yahoo.com, or any review form you may currently be staring at. ;)  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Spoilers: Season 6; "Prince Charmed"  
  
Classification: Charmed; Piper/Leo; angst  
  
Written: January 23 - 28, 2004  
  
Disclaimer: "Charmed" and the characters within belong to Constance M. Burge, Spelling Productions, and the WB. No infringment is intended.  
  
Distribution: My site, Bound, ff.net, anywhere else please ask.  
  
Summary: Piper reflects on special gifts.  
  
A/N: This was done for charmedflashfic, as a Piper/Leo angst challenge, and while it didn't turn out overly angsty, I'm still pretty happy with the results and the fact that after much worrying, it all tied together in the end. :)  
  
******************  
  
Piper fingered the precious piece of jewelry in her hands over and over again. She couldn't believe that Leo had been able to find it after it had been missing for so many years.  
  
She and her sisters had been so young when Prue had "borrowed" the gift from their mother without asking. When she'd lost it, Piper had been furious with her adored older sister. So furious, in fact, that she didn't speak to her for two whole weeks.  
  
Eventually, all had been forgiven, but she had especially missed her charm bracelet after her mother had died far too young. She'd wanted as many memories of her as she could salvage at that point in time, but she'd given up on ever seeing that one again.  
  
Until Leo.  
  
Somehow he never ceased to amaze her. Phoebe and Paige had cast every spell they knew to retrieve it to no avail, yet Leo had apparently found it rather easily.  
  
She hadn't had time to properly thank him yet. Since she wasn't his wife anymore, she wasn't even sure what properly thanking him was. Piper knew it would be hard to put into words just how much it meant to her, but she had a feeling he already knew. He always knew, especially with her.  
  
So many things had changed between them, but he was still the only person that knew her inside out. He was probably the only one who ever would. She didn't see herself giving her love or her heart to another man, even if that meant being single forever. Leo was her perfect man, her other half, and there simply wasn't a way around that.  
  
She knew, she'd tried finding a way.  
  
She knew he'd only done what he'd had to do, but that didn't make the consequences hurt less. Her life, their lives, had been changed in an instant, and things had gone downhill from there.  
  
Piper had always been the romantic in the Halliwell family, even with a man-hating Grams, and even though she was stuck between a workaholic and a sex fiend. Even so, the middle Charmed One had dreamed of a good guy on a white horse, coming to sweep her off her feet.  
  
And he had, though it wasn't so much a white horse as glowing orbs, and he had a very unique way of sweeping her off her feet.  
  
She missed that. She missed him. He was everything she'd ever wanted, ever dreamed, so it was no wonder she couldn't find anything better than what she'd had. She'd already had the best.   
  
Piper placed the bracelet on her wrist and latched it, and finished dressing for the day. Wyatt was with Leo "up there", but he'd promised to have him home in time for breakfast, which she had to get downstairs and make. There was no more time to dwell on things she couldn't possibly change. She had to face them as they were.  
  
Wyatt's cereal was cooling, and the muffins she'd made for herself and Leo were almost done when they orbed in.  
  
"Hey, guys!" she greeted more cheerfully than she felt. "Did you two have a good time?"  
  
"We sure did, didn't we, Wyatt?" Leo replied, settling the blonde boy into his high chair. "He was perfect."  
  
"He usually is," Piper said proudly, coming over to put her son's bib on.  
  
She set his cereal and juice in front of him, ran her hand over his soft hair, and turned to Leo. "I've got some muffins in the oven, do you want to stay and have some?"  
  
"Uh, sure. Sounds great. I don't have anywhere else to be for once."  
  
He sat down at the kitchen table next to Wyatt, as Piper brought over the muffins and coffee for them both.  
  
"Blueberry," she said as he reached for one, and the smile on his face did not escape her.  
  
"My favorite."  
  
"I know," she said, carefully taking a sip of her coffee. She hadn't been nervous around Leo in five years, and she didn't think now was a good time to start again.  
  
Sitting back, she placed her mug by her plate and took a deep breath.  
  
"Thank you for getting my bracelet back," she started. "I never thought I'd see it again. It was the best birthday present I could've gotten." She offered him a slight smile, but there were tears in her eyes.  
  
"I know how much it means to you, Piper," he said as she nodded. "I just - I just wanted to do something really nice for you, because you've had a rough year and that's mostly my fault."  
  
"Let's not do this, Leo. I just - I can't. I just wanted you to know how special it is." She fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, uncomfortable about being emotional with him now. They were all here, sitting around the kitchen table like the perfect family they used to be, only they weren't the perfect family anymore. They were torn apart, and even if it didn't look like it on the surface, the scars remained beneath.  
  
Piper got up and carried her coffee cup to the sink. It was cold anyway, and suddenly she didn't feel much like eating breakfast anymore. She didn't know what was wrong with her lately. She'd spent so much time being strong since Leo had been gone, that now it felt like she was falling to pieces. It wasn't a feeling she liked at all.  
  
Leo walked up beside her, and placed a hand on her arm, concern in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Piper. I didn't mean to upset you."  
  
She rinsed out her cup to try to avoid looking at him. "You didn't. I've just been weird lately. It's not your fault. It's not anybody's fault."  
  
Leo pulled her into a hug, something he hadn't done since they'd been apart.   
  
Piper gave in and wrapped her arms around him, needing to lean on him for support, if only for a moment.   
  
"I've just missed you," she admitted. "Nothing I can do about that," she said with a small smile, pulling back from him.  
  
"There might be someday. I just can't ask you to wait for that day, Piper. The other Elders... it's not an easy thing to convince them of rule-breaking, especially when you're one of them."  
  
"You don't have to ask me. It seems like I don't have a choice anymore. There's a whole world full of other men, Leo. But they're not *you*. I realize that now. I guess I realized it all along, and I was stupid to try to find your replacement, because there isn't one."  
  
Leo's blue eyes were full of tears as he let her words fall over him. "Not a replacement, Piper. But you need someone that can be here, to help you, to love you..."  
  
"I don't want someone, Leo. I want you. And I'll wait however long it takes. But you have to promise me you're working on it. I can't pretend it doesn't matter or I don't care anymore, because it does and I do. I need my husband, and Wyatt needs his daddy, and there's no getting around that. As long as you promise me there *is* a someday, I will be here."  
  
"I promise, Piper. Whatever I have to do, there will be." Hopefully sooner rather than later, he thought to himself.  
  
"Then that's something I can live with. Something I can hold onto," she said, with a teary smile.  
  
Wyatt squealed just then from his high chair, and they both looked over to see him covered in cereal from his chin to his forehead.   
  
Piper laughed. "Looks like our son made a mess of himself." She started to turn away to get a rag to clean him up, but Leo turned her back.   
  
"He can wait a minute," he said as he wrapped his arms around her and gently kissed her lips.   
  
"That is a promise," he said when they'd parted. "I'm sorry, but they're calling, and I have to go now."  
  
Piper nodded. "I trust you to keep it, Leo. I always have," she said as he orbed out.  
  
She turned to clean up her precious, but messy, baby boy, and felt her heart lighten at the lingering of his kiss, and the gentle clinking of her bracelet, that now held many different memories, all as special as the loved ones they were attached to.   
  
End 


End file.
